Bitter Memories
by Pastry Basis
Summary: On Padme's birthday, Darth Vader has a painful dream of his departed wife.


**Bitter Memories**

By: Kinsey Douglas

* * *

Last night was her birthday; and I dreamt of her.

* * *

It seemed to me that a light, a light that I could not reach, surrounded her and the light stung. She was calling towards me sweetly, and as I tried to reach her, the space around me grew colder, darker, and unknown. I called back, but she could not hear me and I was distraught.

She soon disappeared, after I myself had. She flew into the light and I sunk into the darkness, both of our arm outstretched, groping for each other's hand. But our attempts were futile. She could not save me, and I could not save her.

I waited in the darkness for a short amount of time. Perhaps it was longer, perhaps I had been in the darkness for hours, weeks, years, but I did not know. As time went on, however, a small shred of light broke threw the darkness, and threw that darkness I saw a field. It was a field I remembered deeply, I held the memory of a picnic two lovers once shared close against my heart, despite the will of my master. There was Padmé, my Padmé, as beautiful as she had been in reality. Perhaps more so in my dreams.

She was sitting there, dressed in the same attire as before, waiting patiently, toying with a flower beside her.

She was beautiful in life and she was beautiful in death.

I stepped peacefully on the welcoming ground, and she noticed my presence immediately. Rather then question what was occurring around me, for I knew this to be a dream, and dreams are not to be questioned or analyzed, I walked towards her. As I approached, my dark armor faded from my body, revealing a healed me, with a simple Jedi uniform and as my darkness disappeared I let out a relieved sigh of contentment. However I was still me, and I did not forget the past.

I could have my armor taken away, but not my anger.

She had already acknowledged my presence, I was sure that she could sense me, and she was smiling up at me kindly.

"Padmé," I said, confused, yet there was a tone of resentment.

"Hello Anakin,'' came the quaint response.

I began, "How are yo-''

"Please sit with me, Anni,'' she interrupted, her face returned to the flower.

I nodded solemnly and I sat beside her, as she requested. "I've missed you, Padmé.''

"And I you.''

I grew frustrated. "How could you betray me Padmé?"

She let out a sad sigh, one that mirrored the look upon her face. "I did not betray you, Anakin.''

"Yes you did! You brought Obi-Wan to kill me!" My tone grew loud, "Now I am a monster! A machine! I am not human!"

"You're not a monster.'' She looked up at me seriously. "Look," She patted my shoulders, my chest, she even ran her soft finger across my face, and the feel of her fingers paralyzed me. "You are my Anakin.''

I looked down, to contemplate what she had said, and what I had not recognized earlier. I looked as I had years earlier, when she was still mine. "I may look it," I said darkly, "but I have changed.''

Her face contorted with sadness and distress. "Anakin-"

"I changed for you! I changed the galaxy for you!" I was yelling at her, I let my anger flow within me, only in a short burst after I had said it, did I realize who I was talking to. "For what? For you to betray me for Obi-Wan!''

"I never asked you to!'' She yelled back. Her cheeks with stained with tears. "I love you Anakin! I never died in childbirth, that's what you were told to believe! I died because you left me!''

Our conversation, that was meant to be peaceful, had turned dark, a mirror of the last time we had truly met on Mustafar. "I don't believe you!" I screamed.

"Anakin! Stop!'' The area surrounding us had begun to transform back to the lava planet as well. "Come back to me!'' she called with her arms outstretched, "I love you!'' Her voice seized up.

I stood and eyed her and for a moment-just the barest instant- I believed her, as I had not had in reality. But I could not stop myself. "Liar!'' I cried.

Just then, I noticed something familiar behind her, and a surge of rage swept threw me. "You've betrayed me!" The rage on my face made me unrecognizable, and the distress on hers made her seem even guiltier. She turned, and there stood Obi-Wan, dressed as he was the day that I had fought him on Mustafar. He looked ever so solemn. I hated him.

"You were with him!'' I lifted my hand and curled my fingers into a fist, while Obi-Wan was helpless to stop me.

So this is power. This is hatred. And this is pain.

I saw her choking, and unable to breathe. "Anakin! Don't!" But she had to breath to cry out with, and her voice was but a whisper. The ghost of a connection we had shared was gone, lost in time as she fell to the ground.

Sulfurous clouds of the planet came upon the sun, dampening its rays to a far away gleam. My dream went with it and I awoke brutally and quick into reality.

* * *

I left my fear of death and loss behind in the past, but it lingered with as a quiet whisper of a ghost and I felt very alone.

I found myself to be a desolate shell of my former self, soulless at last, haunted and bitter. There would be no resurrection. I thought of it as how it could have been, rather how it _should_ have been, how I could have live a happy life with her in the country with our children. I could've smelt the flowers in the summer, and hear the birds sing at dawn. I would've grown old with her and watched our children grow.

I thought of the grassy fields surrounding the lake, and Naboo. These things were permanent, and however much I struggled to erase them; I could not. These were the memories that stung. All these things I resolved in my dream, while the clouds tainted the pure blue sky, for like most sleepers, I knew that I dreamed. In my reality I lay many light years away in an alien place, and I would wake, before many minutes passed, in my bare quarters on the star destroyer Executer, taking a dull sting from its lack of atmosphere. I would sigh a moment, calm myself and turn, and opening my eyes, be bewildered at the dark expanse of space, that dark, cold sky, so different from the sunny warmth of my dream. The day, the week, the year, would lie before me, long no doubt, and harsh, but fraught with a certain sadness that I had not known until she had passed on. I would not speak of Padmé; I would not speak of my dream. For Padmé was no longer mine. Padmé was no more.


End file.
